"Circle of Life (and Death)" - Gunn and Angel
"Circle of Life (and Death)"
Setting: Post-Not Fade Away, spoilers for After the Fall comics
Rated: R, for general violence, mayhem, and swearing
Summary: Life, death, and friendship in a dark alley
Pain lances in his face, and one half of his world going dark, the other half exploding in red. Clamping a hand to his face, he stumbles, on his knees, rolls to his side, writhes on his back, wishes he could sink lower. It’s too much. He could hardly fight with one hand keeping his intestines together, but that and half-blind? Fucking forget it.
He waves the hatchet in a short semicircle around him, indicating that he’s still dangerous, before it weights his hand down to the ground. Somewhere behind him he can hear the scream of battle, hopes that it’s the enemy doing most of the screaming.
Angel’s shout reverberates too closely in his ears, and he wipes blood out of his remaining eye to see the dark shape crouch near him. Gunn is thankful for his presence - not only does Angel’s bulk shield him from some of the rain, but the vampire’s stationary position helps ground his remaining vision as the world continues to spin around him.
He’s dying. And in that realization, Gunn is free to embrace it.
****
Don’t. Don’t!
It’s almost in slow motion, the spray of the blood from Gunn’s face, the twist and spin he performs midair before collapsing to his knees. He almost doesn’t feel it as his sword first slices through the sword-arm of the offending creature before cleanly beheading it.
Without understanding quite how, he’s at Gunn’s side, and all the feeling that he couldn’t summon in battle haze rushes back upon him. Gunn is going to die, and it’s his fault. His fault. Should have let the crew escape, offered himself up instead. He’s what they want. He’s the only one that should suffer.
Gunn moans, hands clamped in vain to each wound.
Should have been him.
He falls to his knees beside Gunn as the wound bleeds out steadily onto the pavement, soaking his trouser legs. It’s hard pavement, he can feel it under his kneecaps, and he cups the other man’s head tenderly in his palm, a cushion against the raw.
It’s better than the other comfort he tries to offer. “It’s going to be all right, Gunn.”
Don’t leave me.
****
It’s not the death he would have chosen. A quick death, a massive hit so that death rushed over and snatched you up before you knew what was happening. Drive-by. Car crash. Sword to the neck. Even an unknowing death, your breath stealing away in your sleep - you wouldn’t have seen it coming.
They say knowing death is upon you is the worst blow, knowing that your remaining time to breathe and smile and laugh is numbered.
Well, he can’t manage more than a grimace, and he can hardly breathe, let alone laugh. But he’s not discontent. He’s done what he can with his life, made a few seriously bad decisions, but he’s done some really good things, had friends worth dying several times over for. Wesley might have even stuck around a bit so they can head off to wherever together. Or maybe he’ll be waiting.
Best of all, though, there are no more decisions to be made, no one left to disappoint. Just gotta try and finish this part up and go out like a man. The pain glows in his belly, and his chest feels like explosion would be a relief. But that’s okay. He’s had his guts ripped out before. Good to know this’ll be the end of it.
There’s a dull clang in his ears as Angel drops his sword, cradles his head from the pavement. There’s even joy in this. He’s doomed, Angel’s doomed, they’re doomed together. But they don’t have to die alone. Just two buddies, sticking it out to the end.
Not like he had much of a future, anyway, no matter how he tried.
This is a death that he can live with.
“It’s going to be all right, Gunn.” Angel’s in a fever-fit of anxiety and guilt, but it’s not like him to dole out the false assurances. That’s unnerving.
“Reeall…reall…” Dying is murder on the vocal cords. “Really not gonna be, Angel.”
It’s unfair, that after all this, they won’t leave more than a grease-spot on the pavement. Part of the larger injustice that took Alonna, took George, took Cordy, took Fred… Injustice always takes. He should know, he played at being a lawyer.
“We’re going to get out of this.”
Man, quit it already. Just promise we’re sticking together till the end.
****
“Reeall…reall…” Gunn’s voice saws rustily against the air, and blood bubbles up from one corner. “Really not gonna be, Angel.”
He’s given up. They’ve all given up. Behind him, he can hear Spike and Illyria holding the beasts at bay. They won’t be able to hold them all back for long, and as callous as it sounds in his head, Gunn is taking his time dying. He needs to get back and protect those who have a shot at making this out.
Behind him, the dragon’s screech is a hot needle piercing his brain. Or was that an idea?
Angel turns to regard the battle view behind him, as if distracted by a sudden noise. Illyria and Spike stand out in the carnage, body parts flying in semicircles around them. Some demons never really learn teamwork - otherwise they’d have piled the two to the ground.
Illyria never pauses in her stride through the demonic forces, aquamarine Moses parting the sea of her kill with furious movement. Nearby, Spike leaps up with leonine grace to get the lay of the land before landing powerful blows with both arms and one foot.
The only person in the alley not focused upon the action, besides himself and Gunn, is a grey, waxy demon, who instead looks to the sky, his eyes mirroring the movements of the circling dragon. The dragon that’s going to kill them all with one breath in a few moments.
Unless he can dramatically change the game…save them all, save Gunn. If he’s right…
Hope, so recently departed from his life, suddenly electrifies his system, making the hand under Gunn’s head tremble, and the other grope furiously for his sword.
“We’re going to get out of this,” he said, more to himself than Gunn. Maybe there’s a reason Gunn’s taking such a long time to die… “Just hold on for a few more minutes.”
And he flings himself forward into the fray, swordpoint aimed at the demon with the kite-string eyes, a murderous din filling his ears.
“I’ll be back, Gunn,” he muttered, more to himself. One way or another.
****
“Just hold on a few more minutes.”
Say what? There’s no EMS rushing toward this part of town, no one knows they’re there. Hold on a few more minutes for what?
And then the hand underneath his head slips away, and he’s back to his uncertain asphalt deathbed. His own hand reaches out, clutches weakly at the rain - Angel is already gone.
“I’ll be back, Gunn,” Angel said, but his attention is already on the battle.
No.
“Wait,” he wheezes, a whisper against the cacophony of battle. No good.
Come back.
Gunn’s hand falls, empty, he coaxes it back to clamp down against his side. In the absence of Angel’s distraction, the pain rises up like an angry girlfriend, screaming to demand his attention.
He can’t believe that he managed to forget the wound in his abdomen. Not when the ache makes him want to double over, only that just makes it hurt worse. He’s overcome with the need to express his agony somehow - the pain is fast becoming a world of its own, demanding all his attention, which is really something when there’s a demon horde bearing down on them.
The last muscles that could flail without fear of paining his abdomen contract in a grimace, but send white-hot pain searing through his face as the exposed nerves shriek in protest. Somewhere, the image of red hot webbed string pops into his mind, and he can’t get rid of it.
All he can do is lie very still and wait patiently for death.
Where’s Angel?
*****
Back into the rhythm, Angel is comforted by the strange truth of how easy this is. Behead one. Stab another. Gut the three sneaking up behind him - take a brief moment to congratulate oneself at the brilliance of the move.
The difference is, when he first waded into this battle, he had no objective. Death for death’s sake in a suicide mission.
If he’s right, he just might save them all.
Get to that demon. Get to that demon.
He cuts down a swath of enemies like rotting wheat before him - this has to be quick, before that demon directs the dragon down and obliterates them all.
There’s no guard on the dragon-directing demon, and he never sees the slice coming. Angel easily cleaves his neck from his spindly shoulders, severing the psychic tether.
The dragon protests this with a horrible scream that drills into his ear. Angel’s attention is more fixed on its effect on the enemy - it seems to mean something to the amassed horde of demons - as one, they freeze and turn to the sky. Except for those still fighting Illyria and Spike, they begin to edge back.
It’s not that a shadow falls over Angel - it’s too dark to make much of a difference. But he becomes aware of an abrupt cessation of rainfall around him, and a gust of wind that sets his coat flapping madly.
Slowly, deliberately, he lowers his sword and lets his head track upwards, taking in by inches the jade expanse of the dragon’s hide. Where most creatures in this Tolkien’s Villains Parade redefine “hideous,” this creature could lay claim to a certain elegance of form. Smooth lines, sleek skin, and two baleful eyes glaring at him.
The dragon lands delicately, arches its head to loom over Angel. Despite the fact that it could all be over with one choice breath or bite at this creature’s whim, he is rooted to the spot.
He could get away, or he could gain everything.
Angel stayed, looking as deeply as he could into the trunk-sized eye regarding him.
*****
Gunn pants shallowly, idly watching the battle happen sideways, from his vantage point on the ground. Breath is harder to draw deeply, and he needs more of it with each passing second.
Death is certainly taking its sweet-ass time. All those times it came so swiftly, so unexpectedly, to so many unsuspecting people… Gunn wouldn’t blame Wes if he was hovering above, waiting with impatient taps of his foot. There is a part of him that misses the tweedy, annoying young man that Wes used to be. All Wes’s sophistication was hard-bought with sorrow.
Maybe Fred was there, too.
The thought makes him equally exultant and terrified. What would Fred have to say to the person that unwittingly shoved her from her life and her new happiness with Wes? But he’s dying, so he permits himself a brief fantasy of standing in a room with Wes and Fred embracing, Fred disengaging an arm to yank him over into an embrace, into the soft confines of her forgiveness…
A screech that makes his brain wrinkle drags his attention back to real life, or what’s left of it. The dragon is hovering above Angel, a cat considering whether a mouse is better eaten quickly or played with for a time.
Logically, Gunn contemplated, Angel went out with the intention of swaying the overgrown lizard to their side. And he must have freed the dragon…Tired of holding back, I’m about to let the dragon attack…Alonna’d borrowed his CDs shamelessly - she’d sing this song under her breath and he’d know she’d been in his private stuff.
He blinked, concentration winking in and out.
Angel puts his hand on the dragon’s muzzle, talking one more spirit over to the side of good, or at least well-meaning. Dragon-whisperer.
His vision blurs, and the glow of light becomes that merciless early morning sunshine when he knew Mom wasn’t coming home. Gunn blinks, relives Alonna’s tears, the sweet scent of her hair as she buried her head in his neck and sobbed. He watches, dumbfounded, as he manages to set a vampire ablaze - what’s a vampire? There’s a strong scent of antiseptic in the air at the shelter, a smell that gradually dissipates the faster he and Alonna run after they flung themselves out a window.
Softer memories edge up against him, nuzzling and nosing. Alonna begs him to help her plait her hair and screeches when she sees his attempt in the mirror. A full belly and a good laugh after the gang slipped into an unsupervised caterer’s van. Running his hand over the cool metal exterior of the truck, jumping as George honked the horn to get a rise out of him. Wesley gives him a firm high-five, ending in a firm hand-clasp. He grins as Angel tries to stop Connor from crying. Fred kisses him, lips still sticky with pancake syrup, and he feels a wild rush of joy as she suggests they fool around in the truck’s cab. He lights candles and various tea lights, serene in his encompassing love of Jasmine.
Then he sees Cordy’s helpless body, morphing into Fred, trying to be still and sentimental on her hospital bed. Once more, he sinks the stake into Alonna’s breast, and she looks up at him, disbelieving and disentegrating. Gio sneers, asks if Gunn’s been turned. Wesley sinks a blade into his gut, eyes cold with betrayal. He watches as, once more, his liver is excised from his body and flung on a table. Angel looks at them like strangers…Angel.
Gunn forces himself back to the surface, looking desperately for Angel. He sights Spike’s shock of blond hair bobbing up and down in the crowd of demons, as the vampire enthusiastically lobs off the head of another ogre.
No Angel. His good eye flits to and fro, looking for the vampire. His world wobbles again, and it takes all his concentration to continue the search. Ghostly, longing fingers clutch at his arms, pulling him away.
He wishes he knew where he was going. He wishes he wasn’t alone.
His entire being focuses on trying to call Angel, pointless, because neither of them are telepathic.
It doesn’t stop him from trying to silently call out, his entire being focused on his last friend standing.
Bring Angel back. Bring Angel back.
He loses his breath once more as the alley erupts in a torrent of flame.
*****
Of all the resources at his fingertips from Wolfram and Hart, Angel believes he’d kill for a good telepath at the moment. No vampiric telepathy equals no mode of communication.
The dragon sizes him up, lower jaw dropping a bit to reveal teeth like gleaming spearheads. It seemed to be sizing him up, or waiting for a command. At least it hadn’t killed him yet.
Body language, then, would be his best chance.
He raises the hand not holding a sword up in the air, then lowers if firmly, palm-down in the universal “sit down” command. The dragon flaps its wings once more, piqued, then lowers its head down to Angel’s level.
Was he just lucky? Body on edge, but trying to project confidence, Angel reaches out to stroke the dragon’s snout, hand firmly stroking the hard, leathery hide.
The reaction is immediate, the dragon’s lips purse, and before Angel can leap away, it looses with a guttural “O-ooo-oooh.”
A thick pink tongue pokes out of the dragon’s mouth, and Angel turns the pat into an affectionate scratch. So odd, this unexpected moment of success.
“Thank you,” he tells the dragon, feeling slightly awkward. “What is your name?”
The dragon cocked its head at him, then seemed to shake it in a ‘no’ gesture. Angel quietly cheered at the potential opening.
“No name?”
The dragon shook its head again.
“We can find you one, then,” Angel said reassuringly. “If you want one, that is.”
I would.
The ephemeral voice rang as clearly as if someone had been speaking in his ear, and Angel jumped and glanced around without success. There was only one conclusion - he’d picked up a McCaffrey book or two amid his classics.
“You’re a telepath?” Vampires weren’t supposed to pick up on such things, at least as far as he was aware.
“No,” the dragon said, sounding confused. “I’m a dragon.”
“Oh,” Angel said, struggling for words, trying to recover his conversation. “I’m a vampire, and my name is Angel.”
“That was what The Driver told me.” The dragon sounded as awkward as he. Middle of an apocalyptic battle and he was struggling over small talk?
“Tell you what,” he said. “Can’t find a name with you unless I get this battle finished and my friend gets help. Want to help?”
“Help? Help destroy those who enslaved me to their whim? Who treated me as a mindless beast? No reason at all,” and with an offended little flap of his wings, the dragon turns and sprays a rain of fire down upon the enemy.
Dumbfounded, Angel stares, before a fleeing demon in his peripheral vision is cut down by Spike’s keen blade.
“You and Puff, then? Side by side, promisin’ to go down together in the end?” Spike saunters into his vision, hardly the worse for wear after a hard fight.
“I do tend to be the first one that grabs their attention.” Jab and jab alike, but Spike looks less than pleased.
“Yeah, but you don’t get on again once you’re thrown!” Fine, so Spike had the last word. He’d earned it. Angel had a dozen comebacks at his fingertips anyway - it was just too hard picking which one to use. “Blue! Drive em’ that way!” Gesturing with his sword, Spike indicates the enemy trying to regroup.
Angel moves to join her, but Spike stops him by gripping his shoulder. “Where’s Charlie?”
“Back there,” Angel yelled over the din of the dragon’s shriek. “Down for the count.”
He can’t look back, but Spike does, eyes widening, hand gesturing. “Should we…?”
Angel swallows hard, wishing that Spike would, for once, not aim with such accuracy at the source of his hurt. “We can’t get him help until we beat these guys back.”
Spike didn’t move, eyes darting back to something beyond Angel. “If he’s going to kick it, one of us should be with him. Earned that, hasn’t he?”
Angel set his coldest stare on his get. “He hasn’t earned death. We’re gonna get him out of this.”
There’s a few more seconds of indecision on Spike’s face before he nods. “Then let’s be quick about it, yeah?”
He follows Angel into the fray, and they cut through the forces, mopping up assorted demons that got away, and those who seem fire-resistant.
They say that knowing death is upon you is the worst blow. They who said it obviously don’t know what it is to leave behind a friend on the battlefield.
He’s been dead. He’s not worried.
*****
The dragon’s fighting for their side? A smile cracks Gunn’s face painfully, and his sparing breaths begin to huff out in a semblance of laughter.
Trust Angel to bring the dragon around. Trust Angel to turn the tide. Trust Angel.
The thought galvanizes him, lets him pull on those last reserves of energy. He is Gunn, he can do this. Born on the streets, but sure as hell not going to die there!
Bracing his injured side together, with the uneasy thought that that really felt like a small intestine, he gets his other arm underneath him. Sweat pops, beads, runs into the cuts around his eye, and stings like hell. But Gunn just turns his face up to the sky and lets the rain wash it out.
He wants to be upright to see the guys when they return.
Settling onto his knees, holding his side, wiping water out of his good eye, Gunn feels a bit of triumph in these small acts. He peers into the distance - there they are!
Angel is watching as the dragon moves down the alley, spewing more fire and death before it. Illyria turns, looking almost irritated that someone’s getting more kill points than she. Spike jumps into his vision, face almost jubilant, until he looks in Gunn’s direction, and sobers.
There it is, the contact he craves, one person focused on another. Feeling absurd, but too in need to care, Gunn reaches out, asking Spike to send Angel. Spike turns, says something to Angel.
But Angel doesn’t turn, just says something that causes Spike’s face to widen in surprise, before striding forward down the endless alley. Spike turns again to him, face set in apology, before he, too, turns, and follows Angel towards the armies of Wolfram and Hart. Away from Gunn.
No.
No.
He tries to cry out, but he has no voice left to plead with.
Don’t leave me!
****
He wasn’t bleeding too badly for the wound, Angel muses, as he and Spike tag-team a demon woman with the body of a snake. She falls, and he and Spike turn to their respective quarry.
Wesley had his throat cut, and he still lived - it was a fact that Angel felt his mind snap back to, even as he, the dragon, and his remaining friends mechanically obliterated the army.
He’ll apologize - Gunn will have to understand. He tried, he tried.
A meaty hand clamps over his throat, drags him back.
*****
Gunn swayed on his knees, rocked to his very soul.
Angel didn’t abandon his friends. He just didn’t. He wouldn’t order Spike or anyone else not to come to him, either.
It didn’t make sense. Death wasn’t supposed to be like this. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way.
So this is what they meant. This is the worst death. Abandoned by friends, left to die on gritty pavement in a pouring rainstorm.
The memories rush up again, nipping and plucking at his sides, urging him back, sliding him back into happiness. Alonna laughs, whacks him on the shoulder.
The memories suddenly feel very much like hands, and with that realization, a dozen more hands clasp him, cool digits pinching, an agony on his wounds. They pull him back, away from the fight, towards danger.
****
Angel wrenches the hand from his throat, twists the wrist attached to it, and uses his other hand to crush the offending demon’s throat, following with a square punch that rocks the demon’s neck, breaking it.
They did turn the tide, true, but the demon hordes aren’t exactly fleeing.
He sends out a brief prayer for his son, hoping that the boy cleared the area in time, checks around for Spike, for Illyria. The dragon helped their odds, but they could still succumb.
The thought pricks him, and he turns, just to check and reassure himself. Wasn’t he right there? Or was it there? Gunn was in no shape to walk.
Where’s Gunn?
Where’s Gunn?
Come back.
*****
“Everybody dies. I'm just trying to make sure that when we die, we stay dead.” His cold, blase words rose back in his mind to taunt him.
No. Gunn’s mind shied from this possibility, even as his body fought back against what he knew it was. The hands held him down, snickered at his panic. His heart rose up, beating a tattoo of disbelief.
No. This could not happen to him - that wasn’t who he was. Charles Gunn, street fighter, big brother, friend, lover, attorney at law - not a vampire. Never a vampire.
“Angel!” he rasped. “Help…Hel…”
A grimy, wet hand blocks speech, and he tries to bite it. The hands - his vision is failing, and he can’t see much beyond the hand in the dark - viciously pinch his lips together.
A grimy blond head swims into his vision - no, not Spike. Spike’s was a face he’d be glad to see. This vamp was in game face, coming closer, displaying a mouthful of razors and a greasy ponytail that tickles his face annoyingly as the vampire’s fangs descend.
He’s going to die. It’s not a comfort any longer.
*****
It’s as if he stepped into electrified Jell-o, space and matter wobbling and distorting around him. An electric surge charges his body, making him shake and jitter as every cell in his body goes zap! with the energy.
He is deposited, without ceremony, on the top of a skyscraper. His first instinct is to duck as he realizes how light things are, but when he doesn’t char, he’s forced to conclude that something’s happened to the sun.
He wonders how much time has passed - LA looks like a war zone. Last time he was in it, they were in the middle of a torrential downpour. Now, the city’s on fire, and tentacles seem to be reaching over several buildings on Bunker Hill.
Testing his legs, Angel walks over to the edge of the building, looks down at a young couple being menaced by a zombie. Tacky and tasteless.
Where was the fight? Where was he? Where’s Gunn?
It didn’t matter, he’d reorient himself, get back to the alley. Find Gunn, get him to a hospital. Find Illyria and Spike, gather everyone.
Unfortunately, here were two unfortunate souls in need of saving. Behead the zombie quickly, then find the fight.
He throws himself over the skyscraper’s side, tucks his legs under. His body was on fire with unexpended energy, as if his muscles won’t stop twitching.
If Gunn was taken to a hospital, he’s got a good chance. He’ll be fine.
No, he was dying.
Once again, he realized, he’d failed a friend.
****
In a dark alley, under the shadow of death and destruction, a well-used heart slows, each beat more labored and uncertain than the next.
****
In the bright sunshine, a long-dead heart stirs, hesitant, before snapping into a staccato beat, uncertain of the next following it.
Setting: Post-Not Fade Away, spoilers for After the Fall comics
Rated: R, for general violence, mayhem, and swearing
Summary: Life, death, and friendship in a dark alley
Pain lances in his face, and one half of his world going dark, the other half exploding in red. Clamping a hand to his face, he stumbles, on his knees, rolls to his side, writhes on his back, wishes he could sink lower. It’s too much. He could hardly fight with one hand keeping his intestines together, but that and half-blind? Fucking forget it.
He waves the hatchet in a short semicircle around him, indicating that he’s still dangerous, before it weights his hand down to the ground. Somewhere behind him he can hear the scream of battle, hopes that it’s the enemy doing most of the screaming.
Angel’s shout reverberates too closely in his ears, and he wipes blood out of his remaining eye to see the dark shape crouch near him. Gunn is thankful for his presence - not only does Angel’s bulk shield him from some of the rain, but the vampire’s stationary position helps ground his remaining vision as the world continues to spin around him.
He’s dying. And in that realization, Gunn is free to embrace it.
****
Don’t. Don’t!
It’s almost in slow motion, the spray of the blood from Gunn’s face, the twist and spin he performs midair before collapsing to his knees. He almost doesn’t feel it as his sword first slices through the sword-arm of the offending creature before cleanly beheading it.
Without understanding quite how, he’s at Gunn’s side, and all the feeling that he couldn’t summon in battle haze rushes back upon him. Gunn is going to die, and it’s his fault. His fault. Should have let the crew escape, offered himself up instead. He’s what they want. He’s the only one that should suffer.
Gunn moans, hands clamped in vain to each wound.
Should have been him.
He falls to his knees beside Gunn as the wound bleeds out steadily onto the pavement, soaking his trouser legs. It’s hard pavement, he can feel it under his kneecaps, and he cups the other man’s head tenderly in his palm, a cushion against the raw.
It’s better than the other comfort he tries to offer. “It’s going to be all right, Gunn.”
Don’t leave me.
****
It’s not the death he would have chosen. A quick death, a massive hit so that death rushed over and snatched you up before you knew what was happening. Drive-by. Car crash. Sword to the neck. Even an unknowing death, your breath stealing away in your sleep - you wouldn’t have seen it coming.
They say knowing death is upon you is the worst blow, knowing that your remaining time to breathe and smile and laugh is numbered.
Well, he can’t manage more than a grimace, and he can hardly breathe, let alone laugh. But he’s not discontent. He’s done what he can with his life, made a few seriously bad decisions, but he’s done some really good things, had friends worth dying several times over for. Wesley might have even stuck around a bit so they can head off to wherever together. Or maybe he’ll be waiting.
Best of all, though, there are no more decisions to be made, no one left to disappoint. Just gotta try and finish this part up and go out like a man. The pain glows in his belly, and his chest feels like explosion would be a relief. But that’s okay. He’s had his guts ripped out before. Good to know this’ll be the end of it.
There’s a dull clang in his ears as Angel drops his sword, cradles his head from the pavement. There’s even joy in this. He’s doomed, Angel’s doomed, they’re doomed together. But they don’t have to die alone. Just two buddies, sticking it out to the end.
Not like he had much of a future, anyway, no matter how he tried.
This is a death that he can live with.
“It’s going to be all right, Gunn.” Angel’s in a fever-fit of anxiety and guilt, but it’s not like him to dole out the false assurances. That’s unnerving.
“Reeall…reall…” Dying is murder on the vocal cords. “Really not gonna be, Angel.”
It’s unfair, that after all this, they won’t leave more than a grease-spot on the pavement. Part of the larger injustice that took Alonna, took George, took Cordy, took Fred… Injustice always takes. He should know, he played at being a lawyer.
“We’re going to get out of this.”
Man, quit it already. Just promise we’re sticking together till the end.
****
“Reeall…reall…” Gunn’s voice saws rustily against the air, and blood bubbles up from one corner. “Really not gonna be, Angel.”
He’s given up. They’ve all given up. Behind him, he can hear Spike and Illyria holding the beasts at bay. They won’t be able to hold them all back for long, and as callous as it sounds in his head, Gunn is taking his time dying. He needs to get back and protect those who have a shot at making this out.
Behind him, the dragon’s screech is a hot needle piercing his brain. Or was that an idea?
Angel turns to regard the battle view behind him, as if distracted by a sudden noise. Illyria and Spike stand out in the carnage, body parts flying in semicircles around them. Some demons never really learn teamwork - otherwise they’d have piled the two to the ground.
Illyria never pauses in her stride through the demonic forces, aquamarine Moses parting the sea of her kill with furious movement. Nearby, Spike leaps up with leonine grace to get the lay of the land before landing powerful blows with both arms and one foot.
The only person in the alley not focused upon the action, besides himself and Gunn, is a grey, waxy demon, who instead looks to the sky, his eyes mirroring the movements of the circling dragon. The dragon that’s going to kill them all with one breath in a few moments.
Unless he can dramatically change the game…save them all, save Gunn. If he’s right…
Hope, so recently departed from his life, suddenly electrifies his system, making the hand under Gunn’s head tremble, and the other grope furiously for his sword.
“We’re going to get out of this,” he said, more to himself than Gunn. Maybe there’s a reason Gunn’s taking such a long time to die… “Just hold on for a few more minutes.”
And he flings himself forward into the fray, swordpoint aimed at the demon with the kite-string eyes, a murderous din filling his ears.
“I’ll be back, Gunn,” he muttered, more to himself. One way or another.
****
“Just hold on a few more minutes.”
Say what? There’s no EMS rushing toward this part of town, no one knows they’re there. Hold on a few more minutes for what?
And then the hand underneath his head slips away, and he’s back to his uncertain asphalt deathbed. His own hand reaches out, clutches weakly at the rain - Angel is already gone.
“I’ll be back, Gunn,” Angel said, but his attention is already on the battle.
No.
“Wait,” he wheezes, a whisper against the cacophony of battle. No good.
Come back.
Gunn’s hand falls, empty, he coaxes it back to clamp down against his side. In the absence of Angel’s distraction, the pain rises up like an angry girlfriend, screaming to demand his attention.
He can’t believe that he managed to forget the wound in his abdomen. Not when the ache makes him want to double over, only that just makes it hurt worse. He’s overcome with the need to express his agony somehow - the pain is fast becoming a world of its own, demanding all his attention, which is really something when there’s a demon horde bearing down on them.
The last muscles that could flail without fear of paining his abdomen contract in a grimace, but send white-hot pain searing through his face as the exposed nerves shriek in protest. Somewhere, the image of red hot webbed string pops into his mind, and he can’t get rid of it.
All he can do is lie very still and wait patiently for death.
Where’s Angel?
*****
Back into the rhythm, Angel is comforted by the strange truth of how easy this is. Behead one. Stab another. Gut the three sneaking up behind him - take a brief moment to congratulate oneself at the brilliance of the move.
The difference is, when he first waded into this battle, he had no objective. Death for death’s sake in a suicide mission.
If he’s right, he just might save them all.
Get to that demon. Get to that demon.
He cuts down a swath of enemies like rotting wheat before him - this has to be quick, before that demon directs the dragon down and obliterates them all.
There’s no guard on the dragon-directing demon, and he never sees the slice coming. Angel easily cleaves his neck from his spindly shoulders, severing the psychic tether.
The dragon protests this with a horrible scream that drills into his ear. Angel’s attention is more fixed on its effect on the enemy - it seems to mean something to the amassed horde of demons - as one, they freeze and turn to the sky. Except for those still fighting Illyria and Spike, they begin to edge back.
It’s not that a shadow falls over Angel - it’s too dark to make much of a difference. But he becomes aware of an abrupt cessation of rainfall around him, and a gust of wind that sets his coat flapping madly.
Slowly, deliberately, he lowers his sword and lets his head track upwards, taking in by inches the jade expanse of the dragon’s hide. Where most creatures in this Tolkien’s Villains Parade redefine “hideous,” this creature could lay claim to a certain elegance of form. Smooth lines, sleek skin, and two baleful eyes glaring at him.
The dragon lands delicately, arches its head to loom over Angel. Despite the fact that it could all be over with one choice breath or bite at this creature’s whim, he is rooted to the spot.
He could get away, or he could gain everything.
Angel stayed, looking as deeply as he could into the trunk-sized eye regarding him.
*****
Gunn pants shallowly, idly watching the battle happen sideways, from his vantage point on the ground. Breath is harder to draw deeply, and he needs more of it with each passing second.
Death is certainly taking its sweet-ass time. All those times it came so swiftly, so unexpectedly, to so many unsuspecting people… Gunn wouldn’t blame Wes if he was hovering above, waiting with impatient taps of his foot. There is a part of him that misses the tweedy, annoying young man that Wes used to be. All Wes’s sophistication was hard-bought with sorrow.
Maybe Fred was there, too.
The thought makes him equally exultant and terrified. What would Fred have to say to the person that unwittingly shoved her from her life and her new happiness with Wes? But he’s dying, so he permits himself a brief fantasy of standing in a room with Wes and Fred embracing, Fred disengaging an arm to yank him over into an embrace, into the soft confines of her forgiveness…
A screech that makes his brain wrinkle drags his attention back to real life, or what’s left of it. The dragon is hovering above Angel, a cat considering whether a mouse is better eaten quickly or played with for a time.
Logically, Gunn contemplated, Angel went out with the intention of swaying the overgrown lizard to their side. And he must have freed the dragon…Tired of holding back, I’m about to let the dragon attack…Alonna’d borrowed his CDs shamelessly - she’d sing this song under her breath and he’d know she’d been in his private stuff.
He blinked, concentration winking in and out.
Angel puts his hand on the dragon’s muzzle, talking one more spirit over to the side of good, or at least well-meaning. Dragon-whisperer.
His vision blurs, and the glow of light becomes that merciless early morning sunshine when he knew Mom wasn’t coming home. Gunn blinks, relives Alonna’s tears, the sweet scent of her hair as she buried her head in his neck and sobbed. He watches, dumbfounded, as he manages to set a vampire ablaze - what’s a vampire? There’s a strong scent of antiseptic in the air at the shelter, a smell that gradually dissipates the faster he and Alonna run after they flung themselves out a window.
Softer memories edge up against him, nuzzling and nosing. Alonna begs him to help her plait her hair and screeches when she sees his attempt in the mirror. A full belly and a good laugh after the gang slipped into an unsupervised caterer’s van. Running his hand over the cool metal exterior of the truck, jumping as George honked the horn to get a rise out of him. Wesley gives him a firm high-five, ending in a firm hand-clasp. He grins as Angel tries to stop Connor from crying. Fred kisses him, lips still sticky with pancake syrup, and he feels a wild rush of joy as she suggests they fool around in the truck’s cab. He lights candles and various tea lights, serene in his encompassing love of Jasmine.
Then he sees Cordy’s helpless body, morphing into Fred, trying to be still and sentimental on her hospital bed. Once more, he sinks the stake into Alonna’s breast, and she looks up at him, disbelieving and disentegrating. Gio sneers, asks if Gunn’s been turned. Wesley sinks a blade into his gut, eyes cold with betrayal. He watches as, once more, his liver is excised from his body and flung on a table. Angel looks at them like strangers…Angel.
Gunn forces himself back to the surface, looking desperately for Angel. He sights Spike’s shock of blond hair bobbing up and down in the crowd of demons, as the vampire enthusiastically lobs off the head of another ogre.
No Angel. His good eye flits to and fro, looking for the vampire. His world wobbles again, and it takes all his concentration to continue the search. Ghostly, longing fingers clutch at his arms, pulling him away.
He wishes he knew where he was going. He wishes he wasn’t alone.
His entire being focuses on trying to call Angel, pointless, because neither of them are telepathic.
It doesn’t stop him from trying to silently call out, his entire being focused on his last friend standing.
Bring Angel back. Bring Angel back.
He loses his breath once more as the alley erupts in a torrent of flame.
*****
Of all the resources at his fingertips from Wolfram and Hart, Angel believes he’d kill for a good telepath at the moment. No vampiric telepathy equals no mode of communication.
The dragon sizes him up, lower jaw dropping a bit to reveal teeth like gleaming spearheads. It seemed to be sizing him up, or waiting for a command. At least it hadn’t killed him yet.
Body language, then, would be his best chance.
He raises the hand not holding a sword up in the air, then lowers if firmly, palm-down in the universal “sit down” command. The dragon flaps its wings once more, piqued, then lowers its head down to Angel’s level.
Was he just lucky? Body on edge, but trying to project confidence, Angel reaches out to stroke the dragon’s snout, hand firmly stroking the hard, leathery hide.
The reaction is immediate, the dragon’s lips purse, and before Angel can leap away, it looses with a guttural “O-ooo-oooh.”
A thick pink tongue pokes out of the dragon’s mouth, and Angel turns the pat into an affectionate scratch. So odd, this unexpected moment of success.
“Thank you,” he tells the dragon, feeling slightly awkward. “What is your name?”
The dragon cocked its head at him, then seemed to shake it in a ‘no’ gesture. Angel quietly cheered at the potential opening.
“No name?”
The dragon shook its head again.
“We can find you one, then,” Angel said reassuringly. “If you want one, that is.”
I would.
The ephemeral voice rang as clearly as if someone had been speaking in his ear, and Angel jumped and glanced around without success. There was only one conclusion - he’d picked up a McCaffrey book or two amid his classics.
“You’re a telepath?” Vampires weren’t supposed to pick up on such things, at least as far as he was aware.
“No,” the dragon said, sounding confused. “I’m a dragon.”
“Oh,” Angel said, struggling for words, trying to recover his conversation. “I’m a vampire, and my name is Angel.”
“That was what The Driver told me.” The dragon sounded as awkward as he. Middle of an apocalyptic battle and he was struggling over small talk?
“Tell you what,” he said. “Can’t find a name with you unless I get this battle finished and my friend gets help. Want to help?”
“Help? Help destroy those who enslaved me to their whim? Who treated me as a mindless beast? No reason at all,” and with an offended little flap of his wings, the dragon turns and sprays a rain of fire down upon the enemy.
Dumbfounded, Angel stares, before a fleeing demon in his peripheral vision is cut down by Spike’s keen blade.
“You and Puff, then? Side by side, promisin’ to go down together in the end?” Spike saunters into his vision, hardly the worse for wear after a hard fight.
“I do tend to be the first one that grabs their attention.” Jab and jab alike, but Spike looks less than pleased.
“Yeah, but you don’t get on again once you’re thrown!” Fine, so Spike had the last word. He’d earned it. Angel had a dozen comebacks at his fingertips anyway - it was just too hard picking which one to use. “Blue! Drive em’ that way!” Gesturing with his sword, Spike indicates the enemy trying to regroup.
Angel moves to join her, but Spike stops him by gripping his shoulder. “Where’s Charlie?”
“Back there,” Angel yelled over the din of the dragon’s shriek. “Down for the count.”
He can’t look back, but Spike does, eyes widening, hand gesturing. “Should we…?”
Angel swallows hard, wishing that Spike would, for once, not aim with such accuracy at the source of his hurt. “We can’t get him help until we beat these guys back.”
Spike didn’t move, eyes darting back to something beyond Angel. “If he’s going to kick it, one of us should be with him. Earned that, hasn’t he?”
Angel set his coldest stare on his get. “He hasn’t earned death. We’re gonna get him out of this.”
There’s a few more seconds of indecision on Spike’s face before he nods. “Then let’s be quick about it, yeah?”
He follows Angel into the fray, and they cut through the forces, mopping up assorted demons that got away, and those who seem fire-resistant.
They say that knowing death is upon you is the worst blow. They who said it obviously don’t know what it is to leave behind a friend on the battlefield.
He’s been dead. He’s not worried.
*****
The dragon’s fighting for their side? A smile cracks Gunn’s face painfully, and his sparing breaths begin to huff out in a semblance of laughter.
Trust Angel to bring the dragon around. Trust Angel to turn the tide. Trust Angel.
The thought galvanizes him, lets him pull on those last reserves of energy. He is Gunn, he can do this. Born on the streets, but sure as hell not going to die there!
Bracing his injured side together, with the uneasy thought that that really felt like a small intestine, he gets his other arm underneath him. Sweat pops, beads, runs into the cuts around his eye, and stings like hell. But Gunn just turns his face up to the sky and lets the rain wash it out.
He wants to be upright to see the guys when they return.
Settling onto his knees, holding his side, wiping water out of his good eye, Gunn feels a bit of triumph in these small acts. He peers into the distance - there they are!
Angel is watching as the dragon moves down the alley, spewing more fire and death before it. Illyria turns, looking almost irritated that someone’s getting more kill points than she. Spike jumps into his vision, face almost jubilant, until he looks in Gunn’s direction, and sobers.
There it is, the contact he craves, one person focused on another. Feeling absurd, but too in need to care, Gunn reaches out, asking Spike to send Angel. Spike turns, says something to Angel.
But Angel doesn’t turn, just says something that causes Spike’s face to widen in surprise, before striding forward down the endless alley. Spike turns again to him, face set in apology, before he, too, turns, and follows Angel towards the armies of Wolfram and Hart. Away from Gunn.
No.
No.
He tries to cry out, but he has no voice left to plead with.
Don’t leave me!
****
He wasn’t bleeding too badly for the wound, Angel muses, as he and Spike tag-team a demon woman with the body of a snake. She falls, and he and Spike turn to their respective quarry.
Wesley had his throat cut, and he still lived - it was a fact that Angel felt his mind snap back to, even as he, the dragon, and his remaining friends mechanically obliterated the army.
He’ll apologize - Gunn will have to understand. He tried, he tried.
A meaty hand clamps over his throat, drags him back.
*****
Gunn swayed on his knees, rocked to his very soul.
Angel didn’t abandon his friends. He just didn’t. He wouldn’t order Spike or anyone else not to come to him, either.
It didn’t make sense. Death wasn’t supposed to be like this. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way.
So this is what they meant. This is the worst death. Abandoned by friends, left to die on gritty pavement in a pouring rainstorm.
The memories rush up again, nipping and plucking at his sides, urging him back, sliding him back into happiness. Alonna laughs, whacks him on the shoulder.
The memories suddenly feel very much like hands, and with that realization, a dozen more hands clasp him, cool digits pinching, an agony on his wounds. They pull him back, away from the fight, towards danger.
****
Angel wrenches the hand from his throat, twists the wrist attached to it, and uses his other hand to crush the offending demon’s throat, following with a square punch that rocks the demon’s neck, breaking it.
They did turn the tide, true, but the demon hordes aren’t exactly fleeing.
He sends out a brief prayer for his son, hoping that the boy cleared the area in time, checks around for Spike, for Illyria. The dragon helped their odds, but they could still succumb.
The thought pricks him, and he turns, just to check and reassure himself. Wasn’t he right there? Or was it there? Gunn was in no shape to walk.
Where’s Gunn?
Where’s Gunn?
Come back.
*****
“Everybody dies. I'm just trying to make sure that when we die, we stay dead.” His cold, blase words rose back in his mind to taunt him.
No. Gunn’s mind shied from this possibility, even as his body fought back against what he knew it was. The hands held him down, snickered at his panic. His heart rose up, beating a tattoo of disbelief.
No. This could not happen to him - that wasn’t who he was. Charles Gunn, street fighter, big brother, friend, lover, attorney at law - not a vampire. Never a vampire.
“Angel!” he rasped. “Help…Hel…”
A grimy, wet hand blocks speech, and he tries to bite it. The hands - his vision is failing, and he can’t see much beyond the hand in the dark - viciously pinch his lips together.
A grimy blond head swims into his vision - no, not Spike. Spike’s was a face he’d be glad to see. This vamp was in game face, coming closer, displaying a mouthful of razors and a greasy ponytail that tickles his face annoyingly as the vampire’s fangs descend.
He’s going to die. It’s not a comfort any longer.
*****
It’s as if he stepped into electrified Jell-o, space and matter wobbling and distorting around him. An electric surge charges his body, making him shake and jitter as every cell in his body goes zap! with the energy.
He is deposited, without ceremony, on the top of a skyscraper. His first instinct is to duck as he realizes how light things are, but when he doesn’t char, he’s forced to conclude that something’s happened to the sun.
He wonders how much time has passed - LA looks like a war zone. Last time he was in it, they were in the middle of a torrential downpour. Now, the city’s on fire, and tentacles seem to be reaching over several buildings on Bunker Hill.
Testing his legs, Angel walks over to the edge of the building, looks down at a young couple being menaced by a zombie. Tacky and tasteless.
Where was the fight? Where was he? Where’s Gunn?
It didn’t matter, he’d reorient himself, get back to the alley. Find Gunn, get him to a hospital. Find Illyria and Spike, gather everyone.
Unfortunately, here were two unfortunate souls in need of saving. Behead the zombie quickly, then find the fight.
He throws himself over the skyscraper’s side, tucks his legs under. His body was on fire with unexpended energy, as if his muscles won’t stop twitching.
If Gunn was taken to a hospital, he’s got a good chance. He’ll be fine.
No, he was dying.
Once again, he realized, he’d failed a friend.
****
In a dark alley, under the shadow of death and destruction, a well-used heart slows, each beat more labored and uncertain than the next.
****
In the bright sunshine, a long-dead heart stirs, hesitant, before snapping into a staccato beat, uncertain of the next following it.